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I am the Weaselmomma, raising 5 children (Weasels) and 1 husband in a wacky Weasel World. I write, in order to maintain some small degree of of sanity, about anything that happens to be on my mind. Come along for the ride and we'll laugh the days away.
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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Today is FatherHood Friday over on dad-blogs. If you haven't yet joined dad-blogs, go do so here. It's a great community forum of Dad Bloggers, and a few Moms too. There are some great articles to educate, entertain and provoke conversation.

I am obviously not a father. I did however, have a father and am married to a man who is a father. So, I too have enough experience to speak about Fatherhood, from a viewpoint of Mom and Daughter.

As with Motherhood, Fatherhood is not not something that you are born knowing how to to do. Some parts of it come naturally, like the love you feel for your offspring. Other aspects, are things that you learn on the fly along the way. Mistakes are bound to be made and it is in learning from those mistakes and rectifying the aftermath of them that you grow into becoming a good father.

Let me give you an example of how Mr. Weasel grew and learned in the early weeks of fatherhood.

Our Eldest was only about 10 weeks old. We both loved her dearly. I was her main caretaker as a nursing SAHM. Mr. Weasel was involved mainly with cuddle duty, and lots of it there was. He would help in all areas that he could, like sterilizing pacifiers, going out to buy diapers, occasionally changing them and helping out at bath time. I took the bulk of hands on baby needs like feeding, diapers and dressing.

One weekend, friends of ours came to stay with us and visit. A great couple who had yet to jump off the cliff of parenthood. Saturday morning I took the opportunity to enjoy a long hot shower while I had 3 other seemingly competent adults to care for my baby girl while I indulged in this special treat. Over the past few weeks, all of my showers had been extremely rushed, as Eldest would cry the second I started running the water.

I had only been enjoying the steamy hot water running over my tired back for about 2 minutes when I heard a blood curdling scream from the living room. Within 10 seconds the bathroom door came flying open and Mr. Weasel jumps into My shower fully clothed and screaming as he pushed his way under the shower head.

As soon as he is able to speak, he yells "she shit on me!!!!!! I was changing her diaper on the couch and she shit on me!!!!! It's all over everywhere!!!!". "Where is she?" is my first question. "She's still on the couch". "You left her on the couch? To roll off and fall??????" was all I could care about.

I grabbed my robe and rushed to the living room, where I find our dear friends had finished diapering her and picked her up to safety. I found 1 tiny tiny smudge of baby poo on the blanket that she had been laying on for her diaper change. Furious, I storm back into the bathroom to rant at Mr. Weasel for taking care of himself before his daughter, leaving her endangered on the couch and taking away my one small luxury of a hot peaceful shower.

Once he had the opportunity to reevaluate his actions, via his wife and the mother of his child spelling out for him everything he had done wrong (I'm helpful like that) in no uncertain terms. Mr. Weasel realized the errors of his ways and how he should handle this situation differently in the future.

This was both a learning and growing experience for him as a father. I can't say that I never had another shower that was abruptly interrupted, but it was never again with this circumstance.From then on, he brought poop laden child to hand to me in the shower.

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I screamed like a little girl with a skinned knee the first time I was pooped on. Even though I wanted to run from the room, I held it together long enough to finish the diaper change and pass him off to mom before I began scrubbing my hands like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets.

I've easily changed 75% of my son's diapers since he was born and the poop never bothered me. What did bother me, however, was when he was maybe three weeks old and his little soldier misfired - right into my eye. At that point in our lives we both got up whenever he started crying and one would get him while the other prepared the changing materials. This time I laid down on the bed next to him (we were in our room and he was still in his basinette) to keep from rolling away when BAM, right in the eye. Wasn't the first time I was christened, but was easily the one that got me riled up!

I was blessed that hubby had tons of experience from his many, many nieces & nephews (the baby I carry will be the 26th grandchild on his side), but to this day he'll ask for "help with this mess" & I'll wonder aloud what he thinks I would do if he were at work or out of town??

I remember being more startled than disgusted the first time I was pooped on. I just didn't expect it! Baby bums are like fully loaded cannons! No warning whatsoever!

Coincidentally, the first time I got pooped on was the first time I got peed on. Up until that moment, my reflexes were well tuned. I took my eye off of my son's appendage for one second to assess poop damage and WAMMO! Pee all over! I couldn't help but laugh out loud (did I mention it was 4am and I was delirious!?)

Before kids, the idea of poo or slobber on me from some germ carrier was unheard of. After kids: When being puked on, I look at it and comment on what they had for lunch. I might clean it off before getting back to eating a sandwich.

Ha! Loved it. I was the one who let my eldest get bounced off the couch about that age. I then had to call my hubby who is a doctor and tell him what I did while he screamed at me over the phone to NOT LET THE BABY SLEEP UNTIL HE GOT HOME TO EVALUATE HIM. Holy crap. That might have been a tad bit stressful.

Alls well that ends well. He is OK, a little grumpy, but fine - and I am referring to both my eldest and my husband.